MIIS Alumni: Back Row: Don Sillings, Larry Lawson, Tammy Wik, Jeff Madison. Middle Row: Gary Sosa, Karen Hamilton, Celeste Coleman, Belinda Braunstein. Front Row: Erin Butler, Chigusa Katoku.

Many MIIS graduates, students, and faculty attended the 44^th Annual CATESOL Conference two weeks ago in San Diego. The conference is for TESOL professionals in California, and the theme this year was “Riding the Waves of Success,” which dealt with the challenges and achievements educators and students face when teaching or learning English. The event included pre‑conference institutes, multiple plenaries, featured speakers, level and interest group workshops, poster sessions, an electronic village, and general sessions for every level of ESL. Highlights of the conference were the opening plenary, the Thursday evening reception, the Presidential Luncheon on Friday, and the Saturday Night Sizzle.

The event was a great opportunity for all TESOL educators and students to come together, especially current and past TESOL educators and students from MIIS. Many MIIS students, graduates, and faculty attended the event, including Tammy Wik, MA TESOL ‘10, who is currently the English Language Fellow Program (ELF) Regional Recruitment Coordinator for MIIS, and Celeste Coleman, also a TESOL graduate and English Language Fellow (see picture, right). All of the MIIS graduates met up and hung out at the Saturday Night Sizzle, which was a fun 2-hour social event on the last night of the conference (see featured picture above, with captions). Considering there were only about 100 total people who attended the social hour, there was a great turn out of MIIS people at the event.